What’s New in Tableau 2022.1 – Part 2

Last week we took you through some of the new Tableau features and this week, we’re excited to showcase more!

Part 2 - Tableau 2022.1 Feature Updates

New Viz Toolbar
New Search Algorithm/Results Page
Google sheets connector

New Viz Toolbar

When you publish and view your dashboard in your browser, you’ll notice a new Viz toolbar. Not only has the colour changed, but the layout and options on the menu have changed quite a lot as well.

As an example, if you want to perform a Subscription or Manage Metrics or Alerts, you’ll now find these options embedded in the Watch drop-down menu.

Be aware that Tableau has also removed the descriptions for some options, meaning you may need to hover over a tool if you’re unsure what it does, but for the most part, they are reasonably self-explanatory.

You’ll also notice that there is a new button for Acceleration. When you click on this, you want to receive a message saying that Acceleration is unavailable, meaning that your dashboard currently has no performance issues – which is a good thing. However, if there are issues, the Acceleration button may be able to help.

There are typically two causes that can lead to a slow dashboard. The first is a slow running query, meaning that Tableau is waiting for the query in your data source to respond and provide the data that it needs. The other cause is complicated visualisations that contain a lot of data taking a long time to render on your screen.

Sometimes, however, you may still have slow running queries and a slow dashboard without those other issues. This is when you can use the Acceleration feature to vastly improve your dashboard’s performance.This feature will pre-calculate your queries, so they don’t run every time you open up the dashboard, improving the load time significantly.

You can enable this feature in up to 10 individual views of your dashboard simply by clicking the Acceleration button in each view.

One thing worth noting here is that the web edit environment has also been improved through the addition of new menu options within the right-click menus, making it easier to access certain tools.

You’ll also notice that the browser interface is now basically identical to Tableau Desktop as well, with features such as the Workbook Optimizer now easily available in the browser.

New Search Algorithm/Results Page

There are now new search capabilities for the search bar in the top right of your Tableau Online or Tableau Server interface.

In previous releases, Tableau gave us the ability to search by Content Type or Owner without having to physically type in a search term. Now, they’ve also added what’s called “fuzzy matching”, meaning that close enough is good enough when it comes to performing searches. If you make any spelling errors, the search will still return the results you are looking for.

You may also notice that Tableau has removed the toggle switch to move between tiled view and list view. That’s because they believe that certain artefacts appear better as tiles, while others appear better in list view.

For example, workbooks are more visual, so a tile view is ideal for these. On the other hand, a list view works better for databases and data sources. This update is especially useful for newer users who aren’t familiar with switching back and forth between the two views each time.

Another thing you might notice is that there used to be several different filters along the side of the window. This was quite overwhelming, especially for new users. That’s why Tableau has now simplified the filters and moved them to the top, allowing you to filter by Content or Owner, making the user experience much simpler.

A Quick Note on the Google Sheets Connector

As of the latest Tableau update, the Google Sheets Connector has now been superseded by the Google Drive Connector. However, if you are still using the Google Sheets Connector, it will continue to work as expected until April 2023.